Last updated: September 2026

What is banknote paper made of?

Cotton, usually blended with linen. The Bureau of Engraving and Printing states that United States currency paper is composed of 25 percent linen and 75 percent cotton, with red and blue fibres distributed randomly through the sheet to make imitation harder. There is no wood pulp in it, which is what separates currency paper from the paper in a printer tray.

The trade calls the material a substrate, and the Bureau uses that word too, describing it as a fancy word for paper in the currency business. The distinction matters because ordinary paper is made from chemically processed wood pulp, whose short fibres swell and separate as soon as they get wet. Cotton and linen are textile fibres. They are far longer, they interlock rather than simply mat together, and they do not depend on the chemical bonds that water destroys in a wood-pulp sheet.

Blends vary by issuer. The Magyar Nemzeti Bank states that the raw material for Hungarian banknote paper is cotton, with a white base colour and identical dimensions of 154 mm by 70 mm across every denomination (Magyar Nemzeti Bank). Sveriges Riksbank specifies that its notes are printed on paper manufactured of cotton fibres that are not fluorescent, and gives a sheet thickness of 125 micrometres plus or minus 10 percent (Sveriges Riksbank). That non-fluorescence is deliberate: commercial paper is optically brightened so it glows under ultraviolet light, and a genuine note should stay dark.

Weight and thickness are tightly controlled. The Bureau of Engraving and Printing puts the approximate weight of a United States note at one gram regardless of denomination (Bureau of Engraving and Printing FAQs). The Oesterreichische Nationalbank gives euro banknotes a thickness of 0.12 mm and weights running from 0.6 g for the 5 euro note to 1.1 g for the 200 and 500 (Oesterreichische Nationalbank). Those are manufacturing tolerances, not trivia. Cash-handling machines sort notes by thickness and stiffness, so a mill that drifts outside specification produces paper a central bank cannot use.

How is currency paper actually made?

Cotton and linen fibre is pulped in water, formed into a wet sheet on a cylinder mould, pressed, sized and dried in a continuous reel. Security elements go in while the sheet is still forming. Nothing about the process resembles a commercial paper machine, and the mills that run it sell to central banks and nobody else.

From bale to stock

The furnish starts as baled cotton fibre, historically the short fibres left over from textile and cotton-ginning operations, blended with linen made from flax. The bales are broken down and beaten in water until the fibres separate into a slurry. Beating time is a security variable in itself, because it sets fibre length, and fibre length sets how the finished sheet takes a fold, how it sounds when snapped, and how deeply it will accept engraved ink.

Forming the sheet

Banknote paper is formed on a cylinder mould rather than the flat wire of a commercial machine. A wire-covered cylinder rotates in the stock, water drains through it, and fibre builds up on the surface in a layer whose thickness follows the contour of the wire. That contour is the point. Raise the wire and less fibre deposits, so the finished sheet is thinner and lighter there. Depress it and more fibre deposits, so the sheet is thicker and darker. The result is a watermark built from fibre density, not ink.

Sizing, drying and finishing

The wet web is pressed, sized with a surface treatment that controls how far ink spreads, then dried and calendered. Sizing is what stops intaglio ink bleeding along the fibres and what gives a new note its snap. Modern issuers go further: the Oesterreichische Nationalbank records that the Eurosystem decided to varnish the 5 and 10 euro notes when the Europa series launched in 2013, and extended the coating to the 20 euro note from 2020, because low denominations are handled hardest and the coating demonstrably lengthens their working life.

How do the watermark and the thread get inside the sheet?

Both are built during papermaking, not printing. A true watermark is a variation in fibre density created on the cylinder mould, which is why it reads from either side and disappears when the note lies flat. A security thread is laid into the wet web as the sheet forms, so fibre closes around it and the thread ends up genuinely embedded in the paper.

That sequence is the reason substrate features are the hardest to fake. A press can only put ink on a finished sheet. It cannot reach inside one. A printed imitation watermark sits on one face, shows as a grey smudge when the note is laid on a table, and usually reveals a screen or dot pattern under magnification. A genuine watermark is invisible flat and appears only against a light.

Threads have their own long history at the mills. Crane Currency records that in 1844 Zenas Crane started his own mill serving banks and printers, and that one of his sons, Zenas Marshall Crane, created a method of vertically embedding silk thread in banknote paper to show the denomination of the note (Crane Currency). The company also dates the first demetallised security thread, the type that reads as a dark line with clear lettering knocked out of it, to its own work in 1991.

Not every denomination gets the full treatment. The Bureau of Engraving and Printing states plainly that paper for the 5 dollar bill and above is made with specific watermarks and security threads, which is why the 1 and 2 dollar notes have neither. Our guide to banknote watermarks traces the technique back to its origins, and banknote security features shows what each element looks like on a genuine example.

Which mills make the world's banknote paper?

A very short list. Crane Currency in Massachusetts supplies United States currency paper and works for central banks worldwide. Portals in Hampshire has worked with the Bank of England since 1724. Papierfabrik Louisenthal at Gmund am Tegernsee has belonged to Giesecke+Devrient since 1964. Between them they cover a large share of the world's rag-paper currency.

Crane Currency, Dalton, Massachusetts

Crane's connection to American money predates the United States. The company's own history records that during the War of Independence the papermaker Stephen Crane supplied the paper for the securities whose plates Paul Revere engraved. The decisive date is 1879, when, at the age of 26, W. Murray Crane secured a contract to produce paper for United States banknotes. Crane has held that role since, and the Bureau of Engraving and Printing states that its currency paper is made specifically for the Bureau by Crane Currency in Dalton, Massachusetts, with possession of the paper restricted to the Bureau itself.

The company has grown well beyond one mill. In 2002 it took over Tumba Bruk in Sweden, which has made paper, banknotes and security documents since 1755, making it one of the oldest mills of its kind anywhere. In 2005 Crane launched MOTION, the micro-optic security thread, which debuted in the Swedish 1,000 kronor note. In February 2018 it opened a 14,000 square metre plant at Hal Far in Malta, which it describes as the first new commercial banknote printing facility in decades. Crane Currency today prints for more than 50 central banks.

Portals, Hampshire, England

Portals is the name behind Bank of England paper. De La Rue's corporate history records that in 1995 it acquired Portals Group plc, the manufacturer of banknote paper which had worked with the Bank of England since 1724 (De La Rue). The paper business was later separated: De La Rue announced in 2018 a strategic agreement for the group's paper business, to be named Portals De La Rue Limited, and in 2022 terminated its supply agreement with Portals Paper, freeing the printer to buy banknote paper from multiple sources. That 1724 date means three centuries of work for one central bank, one of the longest supplier relationships in the industry.

Papierfabrik Louisenthal, Gmund am Tegernsee, Germany

Giesecke+Devrient was founded in Leipzig in 1852 and rebuilt in Munich after 1948. Its own chronology records a 1958 agreement with the Deutsche Bundesbank to supply half of all German banknotes, and the purchase of the Louisenthal paper mill at Gmund am Tegernsee in 1964 (Giesecke+Devrient). Owning the mill let the printer control its own substrate, which is now the standard model: paper, features and printing developed together rather than bought separately. Our guide to who prints the world's money maps the printers these mills supply.

National mills

Not every issuer buys from the big three. Hungary is unusually open about its own chain: the Magyar Nemzeti Bank states that its banknote paper is made at Diósgyőr Paper Mill Limited and that the notes are printed by Hungarian Banknote Printing Shareholding Company. Sweden's connection runs the other way. Crane Currency's history records that when Sveriges Riksbank decided to outsource banknote production in 2002, Crane took over Tumba Bruk, the mill that had made paper, banknotes and security documents since 1755. A national mill can become a global supplier, and a global supplier can inherit a national mill.

How do cotton paper, polymer and hybrid substrates compare?

Cotton rag paper carries features inside the material. Polymer film carries features on and through a transparent window. Hybrid substrates bond the two so a note can have a paper feel and a real watermark on the outside with a polymer core inside. Each choice fixes what security features are even possible.

Polymer is the sharpest contrast because it removes the watermark from the toolkit. The Reserve Bank of Australia describes its own process in detail: plastic pellets are melted, blown into a huge bubble, pressed and rolled into a long thin roll of clear film, cut into sheets and printed with a white ink that helps other inks stick, and it is at that white-printing stage that the clear window is formed (Reserve Bank of Australia). Our comparison of polymer versus paper banknotes takes that trade-off apart in full.

De La Rue's chronology dates the first banknote on its SAFEGUARD polymer substrate to the Fiji 5 dollar note, unveiled in 2012 and in circulation from January 2013, and records a second polymer production line opened at Westhoughton in 2022 to meet rising demand. Paper mills and polymer lines now sit inside the same companies, which is why substrate choice has become a commercial decision as much as a technical one.

How long does a banknote actually last?

Far longer than most people assume, and the number depends on denomination rather than on the paper. The Federal Reserve publishes estimated lifespans for United States notes, updated in 2025: 7.2 years for the 1 dollar note, 5.8 for the 5, 5.7 for the 10, 11.1 for the 20, 14.9 for the 50 and 24.0 years for the 100.

The Federal Reserve explains the pattern directly: larger denominations such as 100 dollar notes are often used as a store of value, so they pass between users less frequently than lower denominations such as 5 dollar notes, which are used for transactions (Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System). Substrate sets the ceiling. Circulation habits decide where a denomination lands beneath it.

The other durability number worth carrying around comes from the Bureau of Engraving and Printing: it takes about 4,000 double folds, forward and then backwards, before a note will tear. No wood-pulp sheet comes close.

Why does currency paper survive the wash?

Because it is cloth, not paper in the ordinary sense. Wood-pulp paper holds together through hydrogen bonds between short fibres, and water breaks those bonds almost immediately. Cotton and linen fibres are long, mechanically interlocked and already water tolerant, so a soaked note loses its sizing and its crispness but keeps its structure.

What a wash cycle actually destroys is the finish. Sizing washes out, the sheet goes limp, and the note dries flatter and softer than it started. The printing survives because intaglio ink is driven into the fibre under very high pressure rather than resting on the surface, a process our guide to intaglio printing and banknote engraving covers in detail. The watermark survives because it is geometry, not ink.

Heat is a different story, and it is the one rule that separates the two substrates. Paper tolerates an iron. Polymer does not: the Bank of England states that polymer notes begin to shrink and melt above 120 degrees Celsius. Anyone storing a mixed collection needs to treat those two materials differently, which is why our guide on how to store banknotes keeps them apart.

What does the substrate mean for collectors?

Substrate is the first thing to identify on an unfamiliar note, because it tells you which authentication tests apply and how the note will age. Paper takes a soft fibre break along a fold and greys as it soils. Polymer takes a hard permanent crease and fails through ink and foil wear instead.

Three practical consequences follow. First, the light test only works on paper, so an issue that should carry a watermark and does not is worth investigating before anything else (how to spot a counterfeit banknote). Second, a counterfeit-detection pen reacts to paper chemistry, which is why the Bank of England states that such pens cannot spot counterfeits printed on polymer. Third, condition language means different things on the two materials, which is why our banknote grading guide treats surface and fold separately.

If you want to feel the difference rather than read about it, the cheapest experiment is a modern United States note beside a modern Bank of England note. One is cotton and linen with a watermark and a thread inside the sheet. The other is polypropylene film with a window through it (Bank of England). Continue with banknote sizes around the world for the dimensions that go with those substrates, or how a banknote is designed for the stage that comes before the mill.

Planet Banknote is a family-owned dealership in Sarasota, Florida, founded in 2021. Every note is sourced direct from mints, central banks, and authorized distributors, inspected through our Planet Banknote Verified process, and ships with a free Certificate of Authenticity. US orders ship free via USPS Priority, and every order includes a free bonus gift.